3 Historic Entrepreneur Moms To Celebrate This Mother's Day

While Jason Porath was working at DreamWorks Animation, he got really tired of seeing women depicted in the same narrow roles over and over again. So in 2014 he quit his job and dedicated himself to telling the stories of amazing women in all of their varied and fantastic ways. You’ve probably read his celebrated first book, Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics, which details all the princesses Disney couldn't handle.

Now, just in time for Mother’s Day, feast your eyes on Porath’s second book, Tough Mothers: Amazing Stories of History’s Mightiest Matriarchs. In it you’ll find 50 stories about fascinating matriarchs throughout history, from all corners of the globe. In both books, Porath puts his animation background to good use with gorgeous color illustrations of these women and their worlds.

In honor of mothers everywhere, we’re highlighting three women featured in the book who were entrepreneurs and businesspeople long before Oprah, Arianna Huffington, or Sheryl Sandberg.

America’s First Female CEO

Rebecca LukensJason Porath/Dey Street Books

When Rebecca Lukens’ husband died in 1825, she found herself in a precarious situation: $15,000 in debt, suddenly in charge of the family iron-working plant, still mourning the loss of her father and two of her children (who had died the year before), and pregnant. “With her sixth child,” Porath writes. Yikes.

Twenty-two years of hard work later, “she’d accumulated over $100,00 in personal property” by running a successful business. After her death the company was even renamed in her honor: Lukens Steel. For 125 years after her death her descendants ran the Fortune 500 company, and “in 1994, Fortune magazine recognized Rebecca as America’s first female industrialist leader, and inducted her into the American National Business Hall of Fame.”

Korea’s First Female Businessperson

Man-deok KimJason Porath/Dey Street Books

In early 1800s, Man-deok Kim was a celebrated, successful businesswoman with a government post and a residence in Seoul. But Kim didn’t start life out with a silver spoon. Orphaned at a young age she soon became a gisaeng, “an entertainer/concubine/slave of the government.” After she learned that her father had been a nobleman, she petitioned for her freedom and won it. She then opened a hotel for merchants, which she parlayed into a mercantile empire, trading clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and more and making a tidy bundle. She’s become part of Korean culture at large, with an award named after her, TV show based on her life, and even her own Korean proverb ("work like a dog, spend like Man-deok").

So how did she get that government post, a house in Seoul, and even an official title of Uinyeo Bansu ("medicine woman")? Through her generosity: During an unfathomable famine, she donated hundreds of sacks of rice to her Jeju Island countrymen. The plentiful food (which even the government couldn't provide) got the attention of the king, who granted her more fortune than she could have wished for.

One of America’s Wealthiest Self-Made Women

Madam C.J. WalkerJason Porath/Dey Street Books

The child of ex-slaves who was married by age 14 and a mother by 18, Sarah Breedlove “didn’t exactly start life with a ton of options,” as Porath writes, noting that she first worked as a laundress in the late 1800s. Yet a few decades later, she was the wealthiest black woman in America. She wore the best clothes in the country, drove new automobiles, lived in an enormous mansion, and was known by a new name: Madam C.J. Walker.

Walker made her fortune selling hair-care products aimed at the African-American community, and “improving the lot of African Americans became part of her company’s mission.” When she died at age 61, “newspapers celebrated her as America’s first female self-made millionaire.”

Megan Giller is the author of the best-selling book Bean-to-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution. Her blog Chocolate Noise was a 2016 Saveur Blog Awards finalist, and her work has been published in The New York Times, Slate, Zagat, Food & Wine, and Modern ...